Madagascar Costs ?

Hello,
Accomdation ( guest house or cheap hotel but clean ) it's about Euro 20/night
Food it's about Euro 4 and drink Euro 2
About the public transportation i haven't experience about it.
Good luck!!!
Anne

Depending on the standards you expect and the location (countryside, village, city) accommodation can range from around 3 to 4 euros per night up to 30 or 40. However, even in Tana you can usually find something noticeably under 20 euros. An exception is likely to be Nosy Be if you go there.

If by "safe" you mean are you likely to be mugged in your hotel room at night, effectively everywhere in Madagascar is safe in that sense. If you mean can you leave valuable luggage in your room without it being nicked while you're away, you should use your common sense.

Food costs will depend on what you want to eat and where. Wayside restaurants used by overland transport (taxis brousses) will serve local food for between 1 euro and 1.50 euro. In mid-range restaurants you can usually get a main course for between 3 and 5 euros. In most locations you can also buy filling snacks from roadside stalls for a few cents. Don't believe scaremongering stories that you'll pick up unspeakable diseases by doing this - you won't (exception: don't eat dishes prepared with mayonnaise if they've been in the sun all day).

Drinks: a bottle of beer (65 cl !) will cost between just under 70 cents and 1.30 euro depending on the kind of place you drink it in and the location. The same applies to mineral water (1.5 litres) and large bottles of carbonated soft drinks. Always order large bottles ("grand modèle" or "GM") which are usually available. Small bottles ("petit modèle" or "PM") are comparatively expensive, even in cheaper bars and restaurants.

Overland transport is by taxi brousse, which can be anything from a minibus to a pick-up to a truck, and is very cheap in European terms. Prices are fixed for individual stretches - there's no need to bargain. Work on around 3 or 4 euros for 100 km and you should be OK, although there are some very expensive trips where a premium price is charged because the trail wrecks the vehicle (Tamatave to Maroantsetra, around 30 euros).

Your most expensive items will be admission to national parks and guide fees.

IMHO, the large bottles (GM) only make sense if you can share with another person. They typically cost twice what the small bottles do and contain three times as much. (1L vs 300ml). It's annoying because the small bottles are too small and the big bottles are too big. One person drinking 1L of Coca Cola with an evening meal is not going to sleep well.

I usually aim for about 20,000 Ar/night (about $10) for hotels. Outside of a park, I have never paid for 30,000 Ariary/night. I haven't been to Nosy Be yet but I have been everywhere else. A reasonably healthy main dish is typically around 6000-8000 with sides included. (I usually order rice and legume saute). Heavily touristed towns, especially beach towns, are more expensive. Remote towns (not parks) are cheaper though it can be a struggle to get a balanced meal sometimes.

I mostly agree that park and guide fees are the main cost issues. However, many interesting parts of Madagascar are not accessible by taxi-brousse. In those places, transport cost (usually in the form a hired 4x4) can eat you alive. The Fort Dauphin area is especially bad about this.

Subhacker has put his finger precisely on the problem with "petit modèle" bottles of drink: you get only 0.33 litre as opposed to 1 or 1.5 litre, and you pay half or slightly more than half the price for the "grand modèle". As he says, annoying, especially as you'll inevitably buy a second small bottle and end up paying the price of a big bottle while getting much less to drink. There are even one or two restaurants that have recognized the economics of this and don't include "grand modèle" bottles on their menu.

On the other hand: many people, me included, are perfectly capable of putting away a litre or a litre and a half of liquid with their evening meal after an active day in Madagascar's climate. If coffeine keeps you awake, it doesn't have to be coke. Also, if you can't/don't want to finish a bottle at your table, there's nothing to stop you taking the bottle to your room to finish during the night. If the restaurant you're in doesn't belong to your hotel, they'll ask you to pay a refundable deposit of a few cents (200-300 ariary) for a glass bottle.

Another drink you should definitely consider - which will put you pleasantly to sleep - is rum in which various fruits and spices have been steeped. These are called "rhums arrangés", and a shot will cost you between 50 cents an 1.10 euro.

In point of fact, there are relatively few places that are completely impossible to reach by taxi brousse, but if the vehicles to some of the less easily accessible places run only irregularly and are therefore booked solid - or more to the point, the vehicles out of your destination are booked solid, leaving you stranded - they aren't much use to tourists.

An alternative to hiring your own transport is to ask at your hotel or taxi brousse stations if there are any private vehicles going where you want to go. If you're in luck, you should be prepared to pay at least the equivalent of the taxi brousse fare.

Hiring a private 4x4, if that's what you decide to do, will cost you anything between 50 and 100 euros per day depending on who you hire it from, the condition of the vehicle and your bargaining skills. One way to keep the cost down is to find an owner driver. The most expensive source are the tour operators, who will add their substantial cut to whatever they pay the vehicle owner.

Good luck!

I beg to differ with the assertion that the issue is taxi-brousses being full. In my three months across every region, I never found full taxi-brouses to be a significant issue. On the other hand, there are no taxi-brousses to Faux Cap, Cap Sainte Marie, Beza Mahafaly Special Reserve, Andohalea National Park, Andringitra National Park, or Baie de Baly National Park. There are no roads to Nosy Manage Be or Masoala National Park. You need a boat, and an expensive one at that. This is no where near a complete list either. It is just a few places that interested me enough to lookup how I would get there.

Now I am not going to tell you, as some people might, that a hired vehicle is required to enjoy Madagascar. There are still many places you can go by taxi-brousse. In three months, I used private transportation only twice. The first was Mosoala/Nosy Managabe. The second was from Vangaindrano to Fort Dauphin, which really wasn't necessary. I just liked the idea of completing the loop of the South and had temporary travel companions willing to share the cost.

I skipped places like Faux Cap, Cap Sainte Marie, and Andringitra because I felt the attraction didn't justify the high cost of getting there.

When I wrote about full taxis brousses at #4, I had in mind places which are interesting to visit but less accessible than the national parks – although I do recall subhacker reporting in an earlier post that he had problems with full brousses at Soanierana-Ivongo.

With the other places mentioned at #5, I suppose what it boils down to is what you mean by “accessible by taxi brousse”. Andohahela and Andringitra are hike-ins (if you don’t want to fix up private transport, of course) and it’s not a problem to get a taxi brousse to the jumping off points. Nosy Mangabe is an island, so obviously no roads, but you can certainly get a taxi brousse to Maroantsetra if you have the time.

There is even a taxi brousse equivalent from Maroantsetra towards the points of entry to Masoala National Park – there’s a pirogue service most of the way down the peninsula, which is vastly cheaper than the boats that most tourists use. Local people have to get down there somehow, and they don’t always want to walk. Admittedly you’ll have the devil’s own job persuading the park guides to go down with you by pirogue, and many of them will tell you that it’s “too dangerous for foreigners” (why is it OK for locals, then?), but if you insist (and have the time) you can get within easy hike-in distance of the lodges at Tampolo and Ambodiforaha for little money.

The boats that take tourists to Masoala are quite possibly the most expensive individual item you will pay for in Madagascar (air fares excepted), costing €150 and more depending on numbers travelling and what you combine the trip with. A boat out to Nosy Mangabe, on the other hand, is expensive in Madagascar terms, but not likely to break the bank for most people.

Generally, by the way, Maroantsetra is one of the destinations where transport can be booked up relatively far in advance. Especially the new transport options introduced at the back end of last year, which subhacker reported on in his excellent post of 10 November, are susceptible to this. For example, the new express ferry between Toamasina/Tamatave and Maroantsetra has only 50 places (plus 8 “VIP seats” whatever they are) and on a recent enquiry was booked solid for three weeks.

For Baie de Baly, there is an irregular taxi brousse service from Katsepy (across the river from Mahajanga) to Soalala on the Bay. Time will be an issue for many people and full taxis brousses may also be a problem sometimes, but it is accessible.

Faux Cap and Cap Sainte Marie are certainly less accessible. You can get a taxi brousse easily enough to either Tsiombe or Beloha, but after that you have to rely on getting a lift or hiring private transport.

As far as Beza Mahafaly is concerned, it does seem that the closest you can get by taxi brousse is Betioka. On my last visit, at any rate, there was no brousse out to the park. Interestingly, the Bradt guide suggests hiring a zebu cart in Betioka, which I intend to try sometime. That at least should be a cheaper form of private transport than a 4x4!

/Pardon the delay. The last weeks of my trip were just too busy and disconnected to participate in web forums/

In the Northeast, full taxi-brousses are still not a serious impediment, unless you are on a tight schedule. Mostly, it just figuring out how things works in that area. I ended up getting to Mananara by a sequence of two vehicles, neither of which was a formal taxi-brousse. There is enough traffic on this section that this isn't difficult. I did it and I don't even speak French!

I have nothing against hiking but most of the "hike-ins" are really only appropriate for people equipped for multi-day treks. They mean carrying of you luggage, often including provisions, in the middle of the day for substantial distances. Personally, I get a little apprehensive about crossing rivers while carrying my netbook and camera gear. Your mileage may vary.

If you are properly equipped and willing to trek, you can even reach Mosoala this way. It takes three days though.

The pirogue service to Mosoala is a bit of an enigma. No one I talked to could tell me when it went. I get the impression that service is neither frequent nor regular. One could easily get stuck with guide and whoever else you may have hired for indeterminate period.

I was seriously tempted to take the Zebu cart to Beza. What stopped me from jumping of the taxi-brouse bound for Tulear was the unsettled weather and lack of confidence in the highly informal and four year old information in the Bradt Guide.

Edited by: subhacker (Apparently brackets are translated into links)